In Which
by Swamp Thing
Summary: J'onn can hardly enjoy the film with the wild thoughts of his campanions near him.


"In Which Martian Manhunter Reads The Minds Of His Dear Friends Clark And Bruce As The Three Of Them Attend A Screening Of Joss Whedon's Popular Film _The Avengers_"

That green one…that "other guy," as the young man called him. The young man…I'd seen him in some films before, not bad films. A film in which he'd fathered the children of a pair of women, women lovers. I always did fight for the American way, and I always shall. And the American way is changing, and the love those women shared is part of it. But this…this green one. It's as though I've seen him before, as if I'd battled him, fought alongside a hero, his face cloaked…another hero dressed in bright red and blue as I am, another symbol of safety and protection and peace. Another hero who both makes the news and reports it. But it is as though these memories, these memories of this green one whom I see now on the IMAX screen are from another reality. Just as this film is. I see films all the time…Lois and I go…I used to go with Lana, with Ma and Pop, back in Smallville. Our theater was, of course, much smaller than the one here in Metropolis, had only one screen. Smallville was not unlike the one in _The Last Picture Show_. It's funny…now, with the threats that constantly fill our world, it is as though each film I see with Bruce and John and Diana and, yes, Lois, could be the last picture show. It is funny also to see heroes of another reality here on the IMAX screen. This is an imaginary story. I've read imaginary stories of myself, of Bruce, of all my companions. But this…so much of this feels familiar, almost painfully so.

This man…this Tony Stark. Wealthy, yes. A child of privilege, certainly. Much like one could argue I was. But this man…drunk, and self-indulgent. It's as though his very being, his true existence is the mask I always wore, the public Bruce Wayne. I was never this man. I was never this Tony Stark. Tony Stark is merely another name for the mask. Not the cowl. Not the cape. These are not masks. These are my true face. This Tony Stark is just a drunken man in armor. He calls himself a philanthropist. He builds a skyscraper in honor of his own greed. The Wayne Tower's very bricks drip with my family history. The Walls of this Stark Tower drip only with the scotch that oozes from the pores of this bearded drunken pretty boy. He seeks not vengeance, he seeks not justice.

This god of thunder…I suppose if this group is to be seen as this film's Justice League…he's Billy. I don't know what it is about the poets and the songwriters of the United Kingdom, but they've always taken to Billy and me…Donovan's classic "Sunshine Superman…" The Beatles sang "Captain Marvel zapped him right between the eyes…" It's funny. Before this film began, Billy's other name appeared onscreen, 11 feet tall. Marvel. Writers of speculative fiction have often supposed that, if the end of days is to come in the lifetimes of Billy and myself, it shall be our houses that fight the final battle. This is troubling for many reasons. When Billy and I have sparred, he has proven a powerful opponent. Everybody knows from the newspapers and newsreels that Kryptonite weakens me, but fewer know the power of magic. What troubles me more than the notion that Billy might win at the end of the world is the fact that people pair us together as the two to fight. Myself or Billy against Darkseid or Mongul…certainly. It's the parallel that is so easily drawn between this speculative fiction and the Book Of Revelation that so deeply troubles me. This final battle between myself and Billy can so easily, and so eerily be seen and the battle between the Messiah and the Antichrist. Which, then, in the eyes of my beloved Earth people, am I?

This god of thunder. Filling the role of Billy in this film, I suppose. But he is very much a man. Billy is still very much a boy. There is little place for boys in our line of work. I know that now. After Jason. Hell, after Damian. They say the definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and over…repeating the same action and expecting a different result, that's what it was. The argument could, of course, be made that the definition of madness is putting one's life on the line nightly to defend a city that spits upon him. This film…it shows it isn't madness. The world is getting ready to end, we march ever closer to apocalypse, whether or not it takes place upon Apokalips. Earthly and otherworldly foes band together…and the only tape, the rubber band, the damn paper clip that holds it together…it's me and these men beside me. Men, in the end, like the ones onscreen. Though they shall never be as just as we.


End file.
